Fleeing Gang Violence, Clients Win Asylum with Help of BU Law Students
Chloe Sugino and Julio Olaya (both ’20) helped their clients gain asylum after they emigrated from El Salvador.
Systemic gang violence in Central America’s Northern Triangle—consisting of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador—provokes counter-gangs, threatens the safety of women and children, and entangles local police in gang activity. This violence and injustice have pushed many—including a mother and daughter recently helped by the Immigrants’ Rights & Human Trafficking Program at BU Law—to leave their homes in El Salvador and journey north through Mexico to seek asylum in the United States.
According to Boston University School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic, the threat of violence from gang activity is one of the main drivers of migration from El Salvador. Such violence dates back to El Salvador’s civil war in the 1980s and 1990s and is compounded with the spread of gang culture by Salvadorians deported back to their home country from the US.
Immigrant’s Rights & Human Trafficking Program (IRHTP) students, Chloe Sugino and Julio Olaya (both ’20), represented the mother and daughter in their application for asylum after they made the 11-day journey to the United States—like nearly 160,000 people from Central America do each year. Although they were briefly detained, they were fortunately not separated, unlike many immigrants who come in through the southern border, as Olaya witnessed last summer.
Sugino and Olaya’s clients had family members that were part of El Salvador’s police force, and their clients were targeted for being “anti-gang” simply because of their relatives’ occupation. This association put the mother and daughter in danger when they refused solicitation by gang members. “Any time you have individuals rebel against the current authority in the area there’s going to be some sort of consequence,” Olaya says. “When it comes to women, a lot of that is in the form of sexual assault or kidnapping in order to instill fear in people.”
Women, in particular—viewed as property by gang members—are in danger of being sexually harassed or assaulted in the streets, Sugino and Olaya observed. “We’re seeing a huge influx of parents, particularly mothers and their children, fleeing to the US,” Olaya says.
According to Sarah Sherman-Stokes, associate director of the IRHTP, police in areas of Central America overwhelmed with gang activity are often either unable or unwilling to take claims of gang violence seriously, and sometimes the officers themselves are implicated in the violence.
“Our client’s experience was illustrative of the pattern of persecution and violence that a lot of people fleeing the Northern Triangle are facing,” Sherman-Stokes says.
Sugino and Olaya cited the gendered violence against their clients as well as the familial connection to police to build a credible claim for asylum. The student attorneys worked throughout the fall semester to interview witnesses, gather evidence from El Salvador, and write affidavits. However, the case came to a standstill when the government shut down in December. Closed courts delayed the hearing and prolonged the wait for the clients, who desperately wanted protection in the United States.
“This past year, students in the clinic have really been on the front lines of this administration’s war on asylum seekers,” Sherman-Stokes says, citing both the government shutdown and court rulings that redefine the requirements for asylum, such as Matter of A-B-, which was decided by former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions. This decision narrowed the guidelines for those who can seek asylum by no longer guaranteeing protection for victims of “private criminal activity,” such as gang violence, which meant Sugino and Olaya had to reimagine the “particular social group” of which their clients were member, per Session’s decision.
The students knew the government shutdown would mean many more months of waiting for their clients’ fate to be determined. Sugino worried that if the trial was pushed beyond the academic year, their clients’ case would get passed to a new set of student attorneys. She feared the “process of interviewing for hours and building rapport with other clinic participants” might retraumatize their already fragile clients.
Finally, in late March, the first hearing in the legal process was scheduled. Sugino and Olaya had submitted the application for asylum, which established the basis for their clients’ claim, and the Department of Homeland Security attorney used that to determine the threats to the clients were credible and that they would not be safe given the conditions in their home country. When the court date came about, Sugino and Olaya won asylum for their clients without the need for a full hearing—based on the strength and credibility of their clients’ claim.
Having waited so long for the trial, the student attorneys were surprised at such a quick and favorable result. It is uncommon for an asylum case to get settled so early in the process. However, the program’s reputation for thorough research and due diligence, on top of a strong asylum application, secured their clients’ claim.
“Our clinic students work very hard to pursue our cases diligently and zealously,” Sherman-Stokes says. “They’re incredibly committed to these clients and to doing the best possible advocacy that they can on behalf of what are often pretty resilient but also pretty traumatized families.”
Immediately following the hearing, Sugino helped the mother and daughter set up their appointment with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to get their official entry documents. The student attorneys assured their clients that although the asylum case was over, they would remain clients of IRHTP and could receive representation in obtaining their green cards as well as access to social services like health insurance.
“Chloe and I received a text a month afterwards saying [the mother’s] parents blessed us in their country and that they’ll never forget what we did,” Olaya says. “It was super satisfying.”
For Sugino, the victory reaffirmed her desire to become an immigration attorney. “I hope this story helps keep immigration in the forefront,” she says. “It’s easy to get fatigued with all of the horrible things that are happening [with immigration policy], but if we can tell the good stories with the bad, I hope that empowers people to want to create a difference.”
Reported by Shea Robinson (COM’21)
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